c£\ 


'SLABS  OF  THE 
SUNBURNT  WEST 


BY 

CARL  SANDBURG 

AUTHOR  OF   "SMOKE   AND   STEEL,"     "CHICAGO   POEMS,' 
"  CORNHUSKERS " 


NEW  YORK 

HARCOURT,  BRACE  AND  COMPANY 


/ 

SS./3 
si 


COPYRIGHT,    1922,    BY 
HARCOURT,    BRACE  AND  COMPANY,    INC. 


PRINTED    IN    THE    U.  S.   A.   BY 

THE    QUINN    &    BODEN    COMPANY 

RAHWAY,    N.    J 


TO 
HELGA 


4G9SoS 


Acknowledgments  are  due  to  the  editors  of  Poetry 
(Chicago),  The  New  Republic,  The  Bookman,  The  Cen 
tury,  Harper's  Monthly,  The  Measure,  The  Dial,  Vanity 
Fair,  The  Nation,  The  Liberator,  The  Freeman,  in  whose 
pages  some  of  the  writings  herein  have  appeared. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE  WINDY  CITY      ...  3 

*> WASHINGTON  MONUMENT  BY  NIGHT     .       .       .  ifr 

AND  So  TO-DAY 20 

«*~ 

BLACK  HORIZONS              28 

SEA  SLANT 29 

UPSTREAM 30 

FOUR  STEICHEN  PRINTS 31 

FINS 32 

BEAT,  OLD  HEART 33 

MOON  RIDERS •  34 

AT  THE  GATES  OF  TOMBS 37 

HAZARDOUS  OCCUPATIONS        .  y$ 

PROPS 40 

GYPSY  MOTHER 4&< 

GOLD  MUD 43 

CROSSING  THE  PACES 45 

PLES 46 

CALIGARI 47 

FEATHER  LIGHTS 48 

PEARL  HORIZONS 49 

vii 


Contents 


TT  PAGE 

HOOF  DUSK        ....... 

HARSK,  HARSK    ......  5I 

BRANCUSI    ... 

*  o«5 

-^AMBASSADORS  OF  GRIEF      ...  t- 

WITHOUT  THE  CANE  AND  THE  DERBY    ...  56 

THE  RAKEOFF  AND  THE  GETAWAY  ....  60 

Two  HUMPTIES  ......  62 

IMPROVED  FARM  LAND      ......  63 

HELL  ON  THE  WABASH      ....  .64 

THIS—  FOR  THE  MOON—  YES?  .....  65 

-PRIMER  LESSON  ..... 

SLABS  OF  THE  SUNBURNT  WEST      .       .       .  57 


SLABS  OF  THE  SUNBURNT  WEST 


THE   WINDY   CITY 


THE  lean  hands  of  wagon  men  ^* 

put  out  pointing  fingers  here, 
picked  this  crossway,  put  it  on  a  map, 
set  up  their  sawbucks,  fixed  their  shotguns, 
found  a  hitching  place  for  the  pony  express, 
made  a  hitching  place  for  the  iron  horse, 
the  one-eyed  horse  with  the  fire-spit  head, 
found  a  homelike  spot  and  said,  "  Make  a  home," 
saw  this  corner  with  a  mesh  of  rails,  shuttling 
people,  shunting  cars,  shaping  the  junk  of 
the  earth  to  a  new  city.  ^^^^ 

The  hands  of  men  took  hold  and  tugged 
And  the  breaths  of  men  went  into  the  junk 
And  the  junk  stood  up  into  skyscrapers  and  asked: 
Who  am  I?    Am  I  a  city?    And  if  I  am  what  is  my  name? 
And  once  while  the  time  whistles  blew  and  blew  again 
The  men  answered:  Long  ago  we  gave  you  a  name, 
Long  ago  we  laughed  and  said:    You?     Your  name  is 
Chicago. 

Early  the  red  men  gave  a  name  to  a  river, 
the  place  of  the  skunk, 
the  river  of  the  wild  onion  smell, 
Shee-caw-go. 

3 


'The  Windy  City 


Out  of  the  payday  songs  of  steam  shovels, 
Out  of  the  wages  of  structural  iron  rivets, 
The  living  lighted  skyscrapers  tell  it  now  as  a  name, 
Tell  it  across  miles  of  sea  blue  water,  gray  blue  land: 
I  am  Chicago,  I  am  a  name  given  out  by  the  breaths  of 
working  men,  laughing  men,  a  child,  a  belonging. 

So  between  the  Great  Lakes, 

The  Grand  De  Tour,  and  the  Grand  Prairie, 

The  living  lighted  skyscrapers  stand, 

Spotting  the  blue  dusk  with  checkers  of  yellow, 
streamers  of  smoke  and  silver, 
parallelograms  of  night-gray  watchmen, 

Singing  a  soft  moaning  song:  I  am  a  child,  a  belonging. 


How  should  the  wind  songs  of  a  windy  city  go? 
Singing  in  a  high  wind  the  dirty  chatter  gets  blown 
away  on  the  wind — the  clean  shovel, 

the  clean  pickax, 

lasts. 

It  is  easy  for  a  child  to  get  breakfast  and  pack  off 

to  school  with  a  pair  of  roller  skates, 

buns  for  lunch,  and  a  geography. 
Riding  through  a  tunnel  under  a  river  running  backward, 

to  school  to  listen  .  .  .  how  the  Pottawattamies  .  .  . 

and  the  Blackhawks  .  .  .  ran  on  moccasins  .  .  . 

between  Kaskaskia,  Peoria,  Kankakee,  and  Chicago. 


The  Windy  City  5 

It  is  easy  to  sit  listening  to  a  boy  babbling 
of  the  Pottawattamie  moccasins  in  Illinois, 
how  now  the  roofs  and  smokestacks  cover  miles 
where  the  deerfoot  left  its  writing 
and  the  foxpaw  put  its  initials 
in  the  snow  ...  for  the  early  moccasins  ...  to 
read. 


It  is  easy  for  the  respectable  taxpayers  to  sit  in  the 
street  cars  and  read  the  papers,  faces  of  burglars, 
the  prison  escapes,  the  hunger  strikes,  the  cost  of 
living,  the  price  of  dying,  the  shop  gate  battles  of 
strikers  and  strikebreakers,  the  strikers  killing 
scabs  and  the  police  killing  strikers — the  strongest, 
the  strongest,  always  the  strongest. 


It  is  easy  to  listen  to  the  haberdasher  customers  hand 
each  other  their  easy  chatter — it  is  easy  to  die 
alive — to  register  a  living  thumbprint  and  be  dead 
from  the  neck  up. 

And  there  are  sidewalks  polished  with  the  footfalls  of 
undertakers'  stiffs,  greased  mannikins,  wearing  up-to- 
the-minute  sox,  lifting  heels  across  doorsills, 
shoving  their  faces  ahead  of  them — dead  from  the 
neck  up — proud  of  their  sox — their  sox  are  the  last 
word — dead  from  the  neck  up — it  is  easy. 


The  Windy  City 


Lash  yourself  to  the  bastion  of  a  bridge 
and  listen  while  the  black  cataracts  of  people  go  by, 
baggage,  bundles,  balloons, 
listen  while  they  jazz  the  classics: 

"  Since  when  did  you  kiss  yourself  in 
And  who  do  you  think  you  are? 
Come  across,  kick  in,  loosen  up. 
Where  do  you  get  that  chatter?  " 

"  Beat  up  the  short  change  artists. 
They  never  did  nothin'  for  you. 
How  do  you  get  that  way? 
Tell  me  and  I'll  tell  the  world. 
I'll  say  so,  I'll  say  it  is." 

"  You're  trying  to  crab  my  act. 
You  poor  fish,  you  mackerel, 
You  ain't  got  the  sense  God 
Gave  an  oyster — it's  raining — 
What  you  want  is  an  umbrella." 

"  Hush  baby- 
I  don't  know  a  thing. 
I  don't  know  a  thing. 

Hush  baby." 

"  Hush  baby, 
It  ain't  how  old  you  are, 


The  Windy  City 

It's  how  old  you  look. 

It  ain't  what  you  got, 

It's  what  you  can  get  away  with." 


"  Bring  home  the  bacon. 
Put  it  over,  shoot  it  across. 

Send  'em  to  the  cleaners. 
What  we  want  is  results,  re-suits 

And  damn  the  consequences. 

Sh  .  .  .  sh.  .  .  . 
You  can  fix  anything 
If  you  got  the  right  fixers." 

"  Kid  each  other,  you  cheap  skates. 
Tell  each  other  you're  all  to  the  mustard — 
You're  the  gravy." 

"Tell  'em,  honey. 
Ain't  it  the  truth,  sweetheart? 

Watch  your  step. 

You  said  it. 

You  said  a  mouthful. 
We're  all  a  lot  of  damn  fourflushers." 

"Hush  baby! 

Shoot  it, 

Shoot  it  all! 

Coo  coo,  coo  coo  " — 
This  is  one  song  of  Chicago. 


8  The  Windy  City 


It  is  easy  to  come  here  a  stranger  and  show  the  whole 
,   works,  write  a  book,  fix  it  all  up — it  is  easy  to  come  \ 
I    and  go  away  a  muddle-headed  pig,  a  bum  and  a  ) 
v  bag  of  wind.  J 


Go  to  it  and  remember  this  city  fished  from  its 

depths  a  text:  "  independent  as  a  hog  on  ice." 

Venice  is  a  dream  of  soft  waters,  Vienna  and  Bagdad 
recollections  of  dark  spears  and  wild  turbans;  Paris 
is  a  thought  in  Monet  gray  on  scabbards,  fabrics, 
facades;  London  is  a  fact  in  a  fog  filled  with  the 
moaning  of  transatlantic  whistles;  Berlin  sits  amid 
white  scrubbed  quadrangles  and  torn  arithmetics  and 
testaments;  Moscow  brandishes  a  flag  and  repeats  a 
dance  figure  of  a  man  who  walks  like  a  bear. 

Chicago  fished  from  its  depths  a  text:  Independent 
as  a  hog  on  ice. 


orgive  us  if  the  monotonous  houses  go  mile  on  mile 
Along  monotonous  streets  out  to  the  prairies — 
If  the  faces  of  the  houses  mumble  hard  words 
At  the  streets — and  the  street  voices  only  say: 
"  Dust  and  a  bitter  wind  shall  come." 


The  Windy  City 

I^orgive  us  if  the  lumber  porches  and  doorsteps 

Snarl  at  each  other — 

And  the  brick  chimneys  cough  in  a  close-up  of 

Each  other's  faces — 

And  the  ramshackle  stairways  watch  each  other 

As  thieves  watch — 

And  dooryard  lilacs  near  a  malleable  iron  works 

Long  ago  languished 

In  a  short  whispering  purple. 


And  if  the  alley  ash  cans       * 

Tell  the  garbage  wagon  drivers 

The  children  play  the  alley  is  Heaven 

And  the  streets  of  Heaven  shine 

With  a  grand  dazzle  of  stones  of  gold 

And  there  are  no  policemen  in  Heaven — 

Let  the  rag-tags  have  it  their  way. 

And  if  the  geraniums 

In  the  tin  cans  of  the  window  sills 

Ask  questions  not  worth  answering — 

And  if  a  boy  and  a  girl  hunt  the  sun 

With  a  sieve  for  sifting  smoke — 

Let  it  pass — let  the  answer  be — 

"  Dust  and  a  bitter  wind  shall  come." 


Forgive  us  if  the  jazz  timebeats 
Of  these  clumsy  mass  shadows 
Moan  in  saxophone  undertones, 


10  The  Windy  City 

And  the  footsteps  of  the  jungle, 

The  fang  cry,  the  rip  claw  hiss, 

The  sneak-up  and  the  still  watch, 

The  slant  of  the  slit  eyes  waiting — 

If  these  bother  respectable  people 

with  the  right  crimp  in  their  napkins 
reading  breakfast  menu  cards — 
forgive  us — let  it  pass — let  be. 

If  cripples  sit  on  their  stumps 

And  joke  with  the  newsies  bawling, 

"  Many  lives  lost!  many  lives  lost! 

Ter-ri-ble  ac-ci-dent!   many  lives  lost!  " — 

If  again  twelve  men  let  a  woman  go, 

"  He  done  me  wrong;  I  shot  him  "- 

Or  the  blood  of  a  child's  head 

Spatters  on  the  hub  of  a  motor  truck — 

Or  a  44-gat  cracks  and  lets  the  skylights 

Into  one  more  bank  messenger — 

Or  if  boys  steal  coal  in  a  railroad  yard 

And  run  with  humped  gunnysacks 

While  a  bull  picks  off  one  of  the  kids 

And  the  kid  wriggles  with  an  ear  in  cinders 

And  a  mother  comes  to  carry  home 

A  bundle,  a  limp  bundle, 

To  have  his  face  washed,  for  the  last  time, 

Forgive  us  if  it  happens — and  happens  again — 

And  happens  again. 

Forgive  the  jazz  timebeat 
of  clumsy  mass  shadows, 


The  Windy  C%  IT 

footsteps  of  the  jungle, 

the  fang  cry,  the  rip  claw  hiss, 

the  slant  of  the  slit  eyes  waiting. 

V 

Forgive  us  if  we  work  so  hard 

And  the  muscles  bunch  clumsy  on  us 

And  we  never  know  why  we  work  so  hard — 

If  the  big  houses  with  little  families 

And  the  little  houses  with  big  families 

Sneer  at  each  other's  bars  of  misunderstanding; 

Pity  us  when  we  shackle  and  kill  each  other 

And  believe  at  first  we  understand 

And  later  say  we  wonder  why. 

Take  home  the  monotonous  patter 

Of  the  elevated  railroad  guard  in  the  rush  hours: 

"  Watch  your  step.   Watch  your  step.    Watch  your  step." 

Or  write  on  a  pocket  pad  what  a  pauper  said 

To  a  patch  of  purple  asters  at  a  whitewashed. wall: 

"  Let  every  man  be  his  own  Jesus — that's  enough." 


The  wheelbarrows  grin,  the  shovels  and  the  mortar 

hoist  an  exploit. 
The  stone  shanks  of  the  Monadnock,  the  Transportation, 

the  F>x)ple's  Gas  Building,  stand  up  and  scrape 

at  the  sky. 
The  wheelbarrows  sing,  the  bevels  and  the  blue  prints 

whisper. 


12  "'  he  Windy  City 

The  library  building  named  after  Crerar,  naked 
as  a  stock  farm  silo,  light  as  a  single  eagle 
feather,  stripped  like  an  airplane  propeller, 
takes  a  path  up. 

Two  cool  new  rivets  say,  "  Maybe  it  is  morning," 
"  God  knows." 

Put  the  city  up ;  tear  the  city  down ; 

put  it  up  again;  let  us  find  a  city. 
Let  us  remember  the  little  violet-eyed 

man  who  gave  all,  praying,  "  Dig  and 

dream,  dream  and  hammer,  till  your 

city  comes." 

Every  day  the  people  sleep  and  the  city  dies; 
every  day  the  people  shake  loose,  awake  and 
build  the  city  again. 

The  city  is  a  tool  chest  opened  every  day, 
a  time. clock  punched  every  morning, 
a  shop  door,  bunkers  and  overalls 
counting  every  day. 

The  city  is  a  balloon  and  a  bubble^  play  thing 
shot  to  theTsky  every  evening,  whistled  in 
a  ragtime  jig  down  the  sunset. 

The  city  is  made,  forgotten,  and  made  again, 
trucks  hauling  it  away  haul  it  back 
steered  by  drivers  whistling  ragtime 
against  the  sunsets. 


The  Windy  City  13 

Every  day  the  people  get  up  and  carry  the  city, 
carry  the  bunkers  and  balloons  of  the  city, 
lift  it  and  put  it  down. 

"  I  will  die  as  many  times 
as  you  make  me  over  again, 
says  the  city  to  the  people, 
"  I  am  the  woman,  the  home,  the  family, 
I  get  breakfast  and  pay  the  rent; 
I  telephone  the  doctor,  the  milkman,  the  undertaker; 
I  fix  the  streets 

for  your  first  and  your  last  ride — 
"  Come  clean  with  me,  come  clean  or  dirty, 
I  am  stone  and  steel  of  your  sleeping  numbers; 
I  remember  all  you  forget. 
I  will  die  as  many  times 
as  you  make  me  over  again." 

Under  the  foundations, 

Over  the  roofs, 

The  bevels  and  the  blue  prints  talk  it  over. 

The  wind  of  the  lake  shore  waits  and  wanders. 

The  heave  of  the  shore  wind  hunches  the  sand  piles. 

The  winkers  of  the  morning  stars  count  out  cities 

And  forget  the  numbers. 


7 

At  the  white  clock-tower 
lighted  in  night  purples 
over  the  boulevard  link  bridge 
only  the  blind  get  by  without  acknowledgments. 


14  The  Windy  City 

Tiie  passers-by,  factory  punch-clock  numbers, 
hotel  girls  out  for  the  air,  teameoes, 
coal  passers,  taxi  drivers,  window  washers, 
paperhangers,  floorwalkers,  bill  collectors, 
burglar  alarm  salesmen,  massage  students, 
manicure  girls,  chiropodists,  bath  rubbers, 
booze  runners,  hat  cleaners,  armhole  basters, 
delicatessen  clerks,  shovel  stiffs,  work  plugs — 

They  all  pass  over  the  bridge,  they  all  look  up 
at  the  white  clock-tower 
lighted  in  night  purples 
over  the  boulevard  link  bridge — 
nd  sometimes  one  says,  "  Well,  we  hand  it  to  'em." 

Mention  proud  things,  catalogue  them. 

The  jack-knife  bridge  opening,  the  ore  boats, 
the  wheat  barges  passing  through. 

Three  overland  trains  arriving  the  same  hour, 
one  from  Memphis  and  the  cotton  belt, 
one  from  Omaha  and  the  corn  belt, 
one  from  Duluth,  the  lumberjack  and  the  iron  range. 

Mention  a  carload  of  shorthorns  taken  off  the  valleys 
of  Wyoming  last  week,  arriving  yesterday,  knocked  in 
the  head,  stripped,  quartered,  hung  in  ice  boxes 
to-day,  mention  the  daily  melodrama  of  this  hum 
drum,  rhythms  of  heads,  hides,  heels,  hoofs  hung  up. 

8 

It  is  wisdom  to  think  the  people  are  the  city. 
It  is  wisdom  to  think  the  city  would  fall  to  pieces 
and  die  and  be  dust  in  the  wind. 


I 
The  Windy  City  15 

If  the  people  of  the  city  all  move  away  and  leave  no 

people  at  all  to  watch  and  keep  the  city. 
It  is  wisdom  to  think  no  city  stood  here  at  all  until 

the  working  men,  the  laughing  men,  came. 
It  is  wisdom  to  think  to-morrow  new  working  men,  new 

laughing  men,  may  come  and  put  up  a  new  city — 
Living  lighted  skyscrapers  and  a  night  lingo  of  lanterns 

testify  to-morrow  shall  have  its  own  say-so. 

9 

Night  gathers  itself  into  a  ball  of  dark  yarn.^^ 

Night  loosens  the  ball  and  it  spreads. 

The  lookouts  from  the  shores  of  Lake  Michigan 
find  night  follows  day,  and  ping!  ping!  across 
sheet  gray  the  boat  lights  put  their  signals. 

Night  lets  the  dark  yarn  unravel,  Night  speaks  and 
the  yarns  change  to  fog  and  blue  strands. 

The  lookouts  turn  to  the  city. 

The  canyons  swarm  with  red  sand  lights 

of  the  sunset. 
The  atoms  drop  and  sift,  blues  cross  over, 

yellows  plunge. 
Mixed  light  shafts  stack  their  bayonets, 

pledge  with  crossed  handles. 
So,  when  the  canyons  swarm,  it  is  then  the 

lookouts  speak 

Of  the  high  spots  over  a  street  ...  mountain  language 
Of  skyscrapers  in  dusk,  the  Railway  Exchange, 
The  People's  Gas,  the  Monadnock,  the  Transportation, 
Gone  to  the  gloamings 


1 6  The  Windy  City 

The  river  turns  in  a  half  circle. 

The  Goose  Island  bridges  curve 
over  the  river  curve. 
Then  the  river  panorama 
performs  for  the  bridge, 
dots  .   .   .  lights  .   .   .  dots  .  .   .  lights, 
sixes  and  sevens  of  dots  and  lights, 
a  lingo  of  lanterns  and  searchlights, 
circling  sprays  of  gray  and  yellow. 


10 

A  man  came  as  a  witness  saying: 

"  I  listened  to  the  Great  Lakes 

And  I  listened  to  the  Grand  Prairie, 

And  they  had  little  to  say  to  each  other, 

A  whisper  or  so  in  a  thousand  years. 

'  Some  of  the  cities  are  big,'  said  one. 

1  And  some  not  so  big,'  said  another. 

1  And  sometimes  the  cities  are  all  gone,' 

Said  a  black  knob  bluff  to  a  light  green  sea." 

Winds  of  the  Windy  City,  come  out  of  the  prairie, 

all  the  way  from  Medicine  Hat. 
Come  out  of  the  inland  sea  blue  water,  come  where 

they  nickname  a  city  for  you. 

Corn  wind  in  the  fall,  come  off  the  black  lands, 
come  off  the  whisper  of  the  silk  hangers, 
the  lap  of  the  flat  spear  leaves. 


The  Windy  City  17 

Blue  water  wind  in  summer,  come  off  the  blue  miles 
of  lake,  carry  your  inland  sea  blue  fingers, 
carry  us  cool,  carry  your  blue  to  our  homes. 

White  spring  winds,  come  off  the  bag  wool  clouds, 
come  off  the  running  melted  snow,  come  white 
as  the  arms  of  snow-born  children. 

Gray  fighting  winter  winds,  come  along  on  the  tear 
ing  blizzard  tails,  the  snouts  of  the  hungry 
hunting  storms,  come  fighting  gray  in  winter. 

Winds  of  the  Windy  City, 

Winds  of  corn  and  sea  blue, 

Spring  wind  white  and  fighting  winter  gray, 

Come  home  here — they  nickname  a  city  for  you. 

The  wind  of  the  lake  shore  waits  and  wanders. 
The  heave  of  the  shore  wind  hunches  the  sand  piles. 
The  winkers  of  the  morning  stars  count  out  cities 
And  forget  the  numbers. 


1 8  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


WASHINGTON   MONUMENT  BY  NIGHT 


THE  stone  goes  straight. 

A  lean  swimmer  dives  into  night  sky, 

Into  half-moon  mist. 


Two  trees  are  coal  black. 

This  is  a  great  white  ghost  between. 

It  is  cool  to  look  at. 

Strong  men,  strong  women,  come  here. 


Eight  years  is  a  long  time 
To  be  fighting  all  the  time. 


The  republic  is  a  dream. 

Nothing  happens  unless  first  a  dream.\ 


The  wind  bit  hard  at  Valley  Forge  one  Christmas. 
Soldiers  tied  rags  on  their  feet. 


Washington  Monument  by  Night       i<; 

Red  footprints  wrote  on  the  snow  .  .  . 
.  .  .  and  stone  shoots  into  stars  here 
.  .  .  into  half-moon  mist  to-night. 


Tongues  wrangled  dark  at  a  man. 
He  buttoned  his  overcoat  and  stood  alone. 
In  a  snowstorm,  red  hollyberries,  thoughts, 
he  stood  alone. 


Women  said:  He  is  lonely 

.  .  .  fighting  .  .  .  fighting  .  .  .  eight  years  . 


8 


The  name  of  an  iron  man  goes  over  the  world. 
It  takes  a  long  time  to  forget  an  iron  man. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


AND   SO  TO-DAY 

AND  so  to-day — they  lay  him  away — 
the  boy  nobody  knows  the  name  of — 
the  buck  private — the  unknown  soldier — 
the  doughboy  who  dug  under  and  died 
when  they  told  him  to — that's  him. 


Down  Pennsylvania  Avenue  to-day  the  riders  go, 
men  and  boys  riding  horses,  roses  in  their  teeth, 
stems  of  roses,  rose  leaf  stalks,  rose  dark  leaves — 
the  line  of  the  green  ends  in  a  red  rose  flash. 


Skeleton  men  and  boys  riding  skeleton  horses, 

the  rib  bones  shine,  the  rib  bones  curve, 

shine  with  savage,  elegant  curves — 

a  jawbone  runs  with  a  long  white  slant, 

a  skull  dome  runs  with  a  long  white  arch, 

bone  triangles  click  and  rattle, 

elbows,  ankles,  white  line  slants — 

shining  in  the  sun,  past  the  White  House, 

past  the  Treasury  Building,  Army  and  Navy  Buildings, 

on  to  the  mystic  white  Capitol  Dome — 

so  they  go  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue  to-day, 

skeleton  men  and  boys  riding  skeleton  horses, 

stems  of  roses  in  their  teeth, 


And  So  To-day  21 

rose  dark  leaves  at  their  white  jaw  slants — 
and  a  horse  laugh  question  nickers  and  whinnies, 
moans  with  a  whistle  out  of  horse  head  teeth: 
why?   who?   where? 

-/^ 

(  "  The  big  fish— eat  the  little  fish— 
the  little  fish — eat  the  shrimps — 
and  the  shrimps — eat  mud." — 
said  a  cadaverous  man — with  a  black  umbrella — 
spotted  with  white  polka  dots — -with  a  missing 
ear — with  a  missing  foot  and  arms — 
with  a  missing  sheath  of  muscles 
singing  to  the  silver  sashes  of  the  sun.) 

And  so  to-r3      —they  lay  him  away — 
the  boy  *"      .dy  knows  the  name  of— 
the  b        private — the  unknown  soldier — 
th     \    ghboy  who  dug  under  and  died 
aei,  they  told  him  to — that's  him. 

If  he  picked  himself  and  said,  "  I  am  ready  to  die," 
if  he  gave  his  name  and  said,  "  My  country,  take  me," 
then  the  baskets  of  roses  to-day  are  for  the  Boy, 
the  flowers,  the  songs,  the  steamboat  whistles, 
the  proclamations  of  the  honorable  orators, 
they  are  all  for  the  Boy — that's  him. 

If  the  government  of  the  Republic  picked  him  saying, 
"  You  are  wanted,  your  country  takes  you  "- 
if  the  Republic  put  a  stethoscope  to  his  heart 
and  looked  at  his  teeth  and  tested  his  eyes  and  said, 


22  And  So   To-day 

"  You  are  a  citizen  of  the  Republic  and  a  sound  animal 
in  all  parts  and  functions — the  Republic  takes  you  "— 
then  to-day  the  baskets  of  flowers  are  all  for  the  Republic, 
the  roses,  the  songs,  the  steamboat  whistles, 
the  proclamations  of  the  honorable  orators — 
they  are  all  for  the  Republic,  j 

And  so  to-day —  they  lay  him  away — 
and  an  understanding  goes — his  long  sleep  shall  be 
under  arms  and  arches  near  the  Capitol  Dome — 
there   is  an   authorization — he   shall   have   tomb   com 
panions — 

the  martyred  presidents  of  the  Republic — 
the  buck  private — the  unknown  soldier — that's  him. 

The  man  who  was  war  commander  of  the  armies  of  the 

Republic 

rides  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue — 
The  man  who  is  peace  commander  of  the  armies  of  the 

Republic 

rides  down  Pennsylvania  Avenue — 
for  the  sake  of  the  Boy,  for  the  sake  of  the  Republic. 

(And  the  hoofs  of  the  skeleton  horses 
all  drum  soft  on  the  asphalt  footing — 
so  soft  is  the  drumming,  so  soft  the  roll  call 
of  the  grinning  sergeants  calling  the  roll  call — 
so  soft  is  it  all — a  camera  man  murmurs,  "  Moon 
shine.") 


And  So  To-day  23 

Look — who  salutes  the  coffin — 

lays  a  wreath  of  remembrance 

on  the  box  where  a  buck  private 

sleeps  a  clean  dry  sleep  at  last — 

look — it  is  the  highest  ranking  general 

of  the  officers  of  the  armies  of  the  Republic. 


(Among  pigeon  corners  of  the  Congressional  Library 
— they  file  documents  quietly,  casually,  all  in  a  day's 
work — this  human  document,  the  buck  private 
nobody  knows  the  name  of — they  file  away  in  gran 
ite  and  steel — with  music  and  roses,  salutes,  proc 
lamations  of  the  honorable  orators.) 

Across  the  country,  between  two  ocean  shore  lines, 

where  cities  cling  to  rail  and  water  routes, 

there  people  and  horses  stop  in  their  foot  tracks, 

cars  and  wagons  stop  in  their  wheel  tracks — 

faces  at  street  crossings  shine  with  a  silence 

of  eggs  laid  in  a  row  on  a  pantry  shelf — 

among  the  ways  and  paths  of  the  flow  of  the  Republic 

faces  come  to  a  standstill,  sixty  clockticks  count — 

in  the  name  of  the  Boy,  in  the  name  of  the  Republic. 

(A  million  faces  a  thousand  miles  from  Pennsylvania 
Avenue  stay  frozen  with  a  look,  a  clocktick,  a 
moment — skeleton  riders  on  skeleton  horses — the 
nickering  high  horse  laugh,  the  whinny  and  the 
howl  up  Pennsylvania  Avenue:  who?  why?  where?) 


24  dnd  So  To-day 

(So  people  far  from  the  asphalt  footing  of  Pennsyl 
vania  Avenue  look,  wonder,  mumble — the  riding 
white-jaw  phantoms  ride  hi-eeee,  hi-eeee,  hi-yi,  hi-yi, 
hi-eeee — the  proclamations  of  the  honorable  orators 
mix  with  the  top-sergeants  whistling  the  roll  call.) 

If  when  the  clockticks  counted  sixty, 

when  the  heartbeats  of  the  Republic 

came  to  a  stop  for  a  minute, 

if  the  Boy  had  happened  to  sit  up, 

happening  to  sit  up  as  Lazarus  sat  up,  in  the  story, 

then  the  first  shivering  language  to  drip  off  his  mouth 

might    have    come    as,    "Thank    God,"    or    "Am    I 

dreaming?  " 

or  "  What  the  hell  "  or  "  When  do  we  eat?  " 
or  "  Kill  'em,  kill  'em,  the  .  .  ." 
or  "  Was  that  ...  a  rat  ...  ran  over  my  face?  " 
or  "  For  Christ's  sake,  gimme  water,  gimme  water," 

or  "  Blub  blub,  bloo  bloo " 

or  any  bubbles  of  shell  shock  gibberish 
from  the  gashes  of  No  Man's  Land. 


Maybe  some  buddy  knows, 
some  sister,  mother,  sweetheart, 
maybe  some  girl  who  sat  with  him  once 
when  a  two-horn  silver  moon 
slid  on  the  peak  of  a  house-roof  gable, 
and  promises  lived  in  the  air  of  the  night, 
when  the  air  was  filled  with  promises, 
when  any  little  slip-shoe  lovey 
could  pick  a  promise  out  of  the  air. 


And  So  To-day  25 

"  Feed  it  to  'em, 
they  lap  it  up, 
bull  .  .  .  bull  .  .  .  bull," 
Said  a  movie  news  reel  camera  man, 
Said  a  Washington  newspaper  correspondent, 
'Said  a  baggage  handler  lugging  a  trunk, 
Said  a  two-a-day  vaudeville  juggler, 
Said  a  hanky-pank  selling  jumping- jacks. 
"  Hokum — they  lap  it  up,"  said  the  bunch. 


And  a  tall  scar-face  ball  player, 

Played  out  as  a  ball  player, 

Made  a  speech  of  his  own  for  the  hero  boy, 

Sent  an  earful  of  his  own  to  the  dead  buck  private 

"  It's  all  safe  now,  buddy, 

Safe  when  you  say  yes, 

Safe  for  the  yes-men." 


He  was  a  tall  scar-face  battler 

With  his  face  in  a  newspaper 

Reading  want  ads,  reading  jokes, 

Reading  love,  murder,  politics, 

Jumping  from  jokes  back  to  the  want  ads, 

Reading  the  want  ads  first  and  last, 

The  letters  of  the  word  JOB,  "  J-O-B," 

Burnt  like  a  shot  of  bootleg  booze 

In  the  bones  of  his  head — 

In  the  wish  of  his  scar-face  eyes. 


26  And  So  To-day 

The  honorable  orators, 

Always  the  honorable  orators, 

Buttoning  the  buttons  on  their  prinz  alberts, 

Pronouncing  the  syllables  "  sac-ri-fice," 

Juggling  those  bitter  salt-soaked  syllables — 

Do  they  ever  gag  with  hot  ashes  in  their  mouths? 

Do  their  tongues  ever  shrivel  with  a  pain  of  fire 

Across  those  simple  syllables  "  sac-ri-fice  "  ? 

(There  was  one  orator  people  far  off  saw. 
He  had  on  a  gunnysack  shirt  over  his  bones, 
And  he  lifted  an  elbow  socket  over  his  head, 
And  he  lifted  a  skinny  signal  finger. 
And  he  had  nothing  to  say,  nothing  easy — 
He  mentioned  ten  million  men,  mentioned  them  as  having 
gone  west,  mentioned  them  as  shoving  up  the  daisies. 
We  could  write  it  all  on  a  postage  stamp,  what  he  said. 
He  said  it  and  quit  and  faded  away, 
A  gunnysack  shirt  on  his  bones.  )\ 

Stars  of  the  night  sky, 
did  you  see  that  phantom  fadeout, 
did  you  see  those  phantom  riders, 
skeleton  riders  on  skeleton  horses, 
stems  of  roses  in  their  teeth, 
rose  leaves  red  on  white-jaw  slants, 
grinning  along  on  Pennsylvania  Avenue, 
the  top-sergeants  calling  roll  calls- 
did  their  horses  nicker  a  horse  laugh? 
did  the  ghosts  of  the  boney  battalions 
move  out  and  on,  up  the  Potomac,  over  on  the  Ohio, 


And  So  To-day  27 

and  out  to  the  Mississippi,  the  Missouri,  the  Red 

River, 

and  down  to  the  Rio  Grande,  and  on  to  the  Yazoo, 
over  to  the  Chattahoochee  and  up  to  the  Rappa- 

hannock? 
did  you  see  'em,  stars  of  the  night  sky? 

VAnd  so  to-day — they  lay  him  away— 
the  boy  nobody  knows  the  name  of — 
they  lay  him  away  in  granite  and  steel — 
with  music  and  roses — under  a  flag — 
under  a  sky  of  promises.      f 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


BLACK  HORIZONS 

BLACK  horizons,  come  up. 

Black  horizons,  kiss  me. 

That  is  all;  so  many  lies;  killing  so  cheap; 

babies  so  cheap;  blood,  people,  so  cheap;  and 

land  high,  land  dear;  a  speck  of  the  earth 

costs;  a  suck  at  the  tit  of  Mother  Dirt  so 

clean  and  strong,  it  costs;  fences,  papers, 

sheriffs;  fences,  laws,  guns;  and  so  many 

stars  and  so  few  hours  to  dream ;  such  a  big 

song  and  so  little  a  footing  to  stand  and 

sing;  take  a  look;  wars  to  come;  red  rivers 

to  cross. 

Black  horizons,  come  up. 

Black  horizons,  kiss  me. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  29 


SEA    SLANT 

ON  up  the  sea  slant, 
On  up  the  horizon, 
This  ship  limps. 

The  bone  of  her  nose  fog-gray, 
The  heart  of  her  sea-strong, 
She  came  a  long  way, 
She  goes  a  long  way. 

On  up  the  horizon, 

On  up  the  sea-slant, 

She  limps  sea-strong,  fog-gray. 

She  is  a  green-lit  night  gray. 
She  comes  and  goes  in  sea  fog. 
Up  the  horizon  slant  she  limps. 


3O  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


UPSTREAM 

THE  strong  men  keep  coming  on. 
They  go  down  shot,  hanged,  sick, 

broken. 
They  live  on  fighting,  singing, 

lucky  as  plungers. 
The  strong  mothers  pulling  them 

on  .  . 
The  strong  mothers  pulling  them 

from  a  dark  sea,  a  great  prairie, 

a  long  mountain. 
Call  hallelujah,  call  amen,  call 

deep  thanks. 
The  strong  men  keep  coming  on. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  31 


FOUR  STEICHEN  PRINTS 

THE  earth,  the  rock  and  the  oil  of  the  earth,  the 
slippery  frozen  places  of  the  earth,  these  are  for  homes 
of  rainbow  bubbles,  curves  of  the  circles  of  a  bubble, 
curves  of  the  arcs  of  the  rainbow  prisms — between  sun 
and  rock  they  lift  to  the  sun  their  foam  feather  and  go. 

Throw  your  neck  back,  throw  it  back  till  the  neck 
muscles  shine  at  the  sun,  till  the  falling  hair  at  the 
scalp  is  a  black  cry,  till  limbs  and  knee  bones  form 
an  altar,  and  a  girl's  torso  over  the  fire-rock  torso  shouts 
hi  yi,  hi  yee,  hallelujah. 

Goat  girl  caught  in  the  brambles,  deerfoot  or  fox-head, 
ankles  and  hair  of  feeders  of  the  wind,  let  all  the  covering 
burn,  let  all  stopping  a  naked  plunger  from  plunging 
naked,  let  it  all  burn  in  this  wind  fire,  let  the  fire  have 
it  in  a  fast  crunch  and  a  flash. 

They  threw  you  into  a  pot  of  thorns  with  a  wreath  in 
your  hair  and  bunches  of  grapes  over  your  head — your 
hard  little  buttocks  in  the  thorns — then  the  black  eyes, 
the  white  teeth,  the  nameless  muscular  flair  of  you, 
rippled  and  twisted  in  sliding  rising  scales  of  laughter; 
the  earth  never  had  a  gladder  friend;  pigs,  goats,  deer, 
tawny  tough-haired  jaguars  might  understand  you. 


32  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


FINS 

PLOW  over  bars  of  sea  plowing, 
the  moon  by  moon  work  of  the  sea, 
the  plowing,  sand  and  rock,  must 
be  done. 

Ride  over,  ride  over  bars  of  sea  riding, 
the  sun  and  the  blue  riding  of  the  sea — 
sit  in  the  saddles  and  say  it,  sea  riders. 

Slant  up  and  go,  silver  breakers ;  mix 
the  high  howls  of  your  dancing;  shoot 
your  laugh  of  rainbow  foam  tops. 

Foam  wings,  fly;  pick  the  comers,  the  fin  pink, 
the  belly  green,  the  blue  rain  sparks,  the 
white  wave  spit — fly,  you  foam  wings. 

The  men  of  the  sea  are  gone  to  work ;  the  women 
of  the  sea  are  off  buying  new  hats,  combs,  clocks; 
it  is  rust  and  gold  on  the  roofs  of  the  sea. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  33 


BEAT,   OLD   HEART 

BEAT,  old  heart,  these  are  the  old  bars 
All  strugglers  have  beat  against. 
Beat  on  these  bars  like  the  old  sea 
Beats  on  the  rocks  and  beaches. 
Beat  here  like  the  old  winter  winds 
Beat  on  the  prairies  and  timbers. 
Old  grizzlies,  eagles,  buffalo, 
Their  paws  and  beaks  register  this. 
Their  hides  and  heads  say  it  with  scars. 


34  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


MOON  RIDERS 


WHAT  have  I  saved  out  of  a  morning? 

The  earliest  of  the  morning  came  with  moon-mist 

And  the  travel  of  a  moon-spilt  purple; 

Bars,  horseshoes,  Texas  longhorns, 

Linked  in  night  silver, 

Linked  under  leaves  in  moonlit  silver, 

Linked  in  rags  and  patches 

Out  of  the  ice  houses  of  the  morning  moon. 

Yes,  this  was  the  earliest — 

Before  the  cowpunchers  on  the  eastern  rims 

Began  riding  into  the  sun, 

Riding  the  roan  mustangs  of  morning, 

Roping  the  mavericks  after  the  latest  stars. 

What  have  I  saved  out  of  a  morning? 

Was  there  a  child  face  I  saw  once 

Smiling  up  a  stairway  of  the  morning  moon? 


"  It  is  time  for  work,"  said  a  man  in  the  morning. 
He  opened  the  faces  of  the  clocks,  saw  their  works, 
Saw  the  wheels  oiled  and  fitted,  running  smooth. 
"  It  is  time  to  begin  a  day's  work,"  he  said  again, 
Watching  a  bull-finch  hop  on  the  rain-worn  boards 


Moon  Riders  35 

Of  a  beaten  fence  counting  its  bitter  winters. 
The  slinging  feet  of  the  bull-finch  and  the  flash 
Of  its  flying  feathers  as  it  flipped  away 
Took  his  eyes  away  from  the  clocks,  his  flying  eyes. 
He  walked  over,  stood  in  front  of  the  clocks  again 
And  said,  "  I'm  sorry;  I  apologize  forty  ways." 


The  morning  paper  lay  bundled 

Like  a  spear  in  a  museum 

Across  the  broken  sleeping  room 

Of  a  moon-sheet  spider. 

The  spinning  work  of  the  morning  spider's  feet 
Left  off  where  the  morning  paper's  pages  lay 
In  the  shine  of  the  web  in  the  summer  dew  grass. 
The  man  opened  the  morning  paper,  saw  the  first  page, 
The  back  page,  the  inside  pages,  the  editorials, 
Saw  the  world  go  by,  eating,  stealing,  fighting, 
Saw  the  headlines,  date  lines,  funnies,  ads, 
The  marching  movies  of  the  workmen  going  to  work, 

the  workmen  striking, 
The  workmen  asking  jobs — five  million  pairs  of  eyes  look 

for  a  boss  and  say,  "  Take  me," 
People  eating  with  too  much  to  eat,  people  eating  with 

nothing  in  sight  to  eat  to-morrow,  eating  as  though 

eating  belongs  where  people  belong. 

"  Hustle,  you  hustlers,  while  the  bustling's  good," 
Said  the  man,  turning  the  morning  paper's  pages, 
Turning  among  headlines,  date  lines,  funnies,  ads. 


36  Moon  Riders 

"  Hustlers  carrying  the  banner,"  said  the  man 
Dropping  the  paper  and  beginning  to  hunt  the  city, 
Hunting  the  alleys,  boulevards,  back-door  by-ways, 
Hunting  till  he  found  a  blind  horse  dying  alone, 
Telling  the  horse,  "  Two  legs  or  four  legs — it's  all  the 
same  with  a  work  plug." 

A  hayfield  mist  of  evening  saw  him 

Watching  moon  riders  lose  the  moon 

For  new  shooting  stars— he  asked, 
"  Christ,  what  have  I  saved  out  of  a  morning?  " 
He  called  up  a  stairway  of  the  morning  moon 
And  he  remembered  a  child  face  smiling  up  that  same 

stairway. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  37 


AT  THE   GATES   OF  TOMBS 

CIVILIZATIONS  are  set  up  and  knocked  down 
the  same  as  pins  in  a  bowling  alley. 

Civilizations  get  into  the  garbage  wagons 
and  are  hauled  away  the  same  as  potato 
peelings  or  any  pot  scrapings. 

Civilizations,  all  the  work  of  the  artists, 
inventors,  dreamers  of  work  and  genius, 
go  to  the  dumps  one  by  one. 

Be  silent  about  it;  since  at  the  gates  of  tombs 
silence  is  a  gift,  be  silent;  since  at  the  epitaphs 
written  in  the  air,  since  at  the  swan  songs  hung  in 
the  air,  silence  is  a  gift,  be  silent;  forget  it. 

If  any  fool,  babbler,  gabby  mouth,  stand  up  and  say: 
Let  us  make  a  civilization  where  the  sacred  and 
beautiful  things  of  toil  and  genius  shall  last — 

If  any  such  noisy  gazook  stands  up  and  makes  himself 
heard — put  him  out — tie  a  can  on  him — lock  him  up 
in  Leavenworth — shackle  him  in  the  Atlanta  hoosegow 
— let  him  eat  from  the  tin  dishes  at  Sing  Sing — 
slew  him  in  as  a  lifer  at  San  Quentin. 


38  At  the  Gates  of  Tombs 

It  is  the  law;  as  a  civilization  dies  and  goes  down 
to  eat  ashes  along  with  all  other  dead  civilizations 
— it  is  the  law  all  dirty  wild  dreamers  die  first — 
gag  'em,  lock  'em  up,  get  'em  bumped  off. 

And  since  at  the  gates  of  tombs  silence  is  a  gift, 
be  silent  about  it,  yes,  be  silent — forget  it. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  39 


TIO 


HAZARDOUS  OCCUPATIONS 

JUGGLERS  keep  six  bottles  in  the  air. 
Club  swingers  toss  up  six  and  eight. 
The  knife  throwers  miss  each  other's 

ears  by  a  hair  and  the  steel  quivers 

in  the  target  wood. 
The  trapeze  battlers  do  a  back-and-forth 

high  in  the  air  with  a  girl's  feet 

and  ankles  upside  down. 
So  they  earn  a  living — till  they  miss 

once,  twice,  even  three  times. 
So  they  live  on  hate  and  love  as  gypsies 

live  in  satin  skins  and  shiny  eyes. 
In  their  graves  do  the  elbows  jostle  once 

in  a  blue  moon — and  wriggle  to  throw 

a  kiss  answering  a  dreamed-of  applause? 
Do  the  bones  repeat:   It's  a  good  act — 

we  got  a  good  hand.  .  .  .  ? 


40  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


PROPS 


ROLL  open  this  rug;  a  minx  is 
in  it;  see  her  toe  wiggling; 
roll  open  the  rug;  she  is  a 
runaway;  or  somebody  is  trying 
to  steal  her;  here  she  is; 
here's  your  minx;  how  can  we 
have  a  play  unless  we  have 
this  minx? 

2 

The  child  goes  out  in  the  storm 
stage  thunder;  "  erring  daughter, 
never  darken  this  door-sill  again  " ; 
the  tender  parents  speak  their  curse; 
the  child  puts  a  few  knick-knacks  in 
a  handkerchief ;  and  the  child  goes ; 
the  door  closes  and  the  child  goes; 
she  is  out  now,  in  the  storm  on  the 
stage,  out  forever ;  snow,  you  son-of-a-gun, 
snow,  turn  on  the  snow. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  41 


GYPSY  MOTHER 

IN   a   hole-in-a-wall   on    Halsted    Street    sits    a    gypsy 

woman, 
In  a  garish  gas-lit  rendezvous,  in  a  humpback  higgling 

hole-in-a-wall. 

The  left  hand  is  a  tattler;  stars  and  oaths  and  alphabets 

Commit  themselves  and  tell  happenings  gone,  happenings 

to  come,  pathways  of  honest  people,  hypocrites. 

"  Long  pointed  fingers  mean  imagination ;  a  star  on  the 
third  finger  says  a  black  shadow  walks  near." 

Cross  the  gypsy's  hand  with  fifty  cents  and  she  takes 
your  left  hand  and  reads  how  you  shall  be  happy  in 
love,  or  not,  and  whether  you  die  rich,  or  not. 

Signs  outside  the  hole-in-a-wall  say  so,  misspell  the 
promises,  scrawl  the  superior  gypsy  mysteries. 

A  red  shawl  on  her  shoulders  falls  with  a  fringe  hem  to 

a  green  skirt; 
Chains  of  yellow  beads  sweep  from  her  neck  to  her  tawny 

hands. 
Fifty  springtimes  must  have  kissed  her  mouth  holding  a 

calabash  pipe. 
She  pulls  slow  contemplative  puffs  of  smoke;  she  is  a 

shape  for  ghosts  of  contemplation  to  sit  around  and 


42  Gypsy  Mother 

ask  why  something  cheap  as  happiness  is  here  and 
more  besides,  chapped  lips,  rough  eyes,  red  shawl. 
She  is  thinking  about  somebody  and  something  the  same 
as  Whistler's  mother  sat  and  thought  about  some 
body  and  something. 

In  a  hole-in-a-wall  on  Halsted  Street  are  stars,  oaths, 
alphabets. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  43 

GOLD  MUD 
(For  R.  F.) 

THE  pot  of  gold  at  the  rainbow  end 
is  a  pot  of  mud,  gold  mud, 
slippery  shining  mud. 


Pour  it  on  your  hair  and  you  will 

have  a  golden  hair. 
Pour  it  on  your  cat  and  you  will 

have  a  golden  cat. 
Pour  it  on  your  clock  and  you  will 

have  a  golden  clock. 


Pour  it  on  a  dead  man's  thumb  and 
you  will  have  a  golden  thumb 
to  bring  you  bad  dreams. 

Pour  it  on  a  dead  woman's  ear  and 
you  will  have  a  golden  ear 
to  tell  hard  luck  stories  to. 

Pour  it  on  a  horse  chestnut  and  you 
will  have  a  golden  buckeye 
changing  your  luck. 


44  Gold  Mud 

Pour  it  in  the  shape  of  a  holy  cross, 

fasten  it  on  my  shirt  for  me  to  wear 
and  I  will  have  a  keepsake. 

I  will  touch  it  and  say  a  prayer  for  you. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  45 


CROSSING   THE    PACES 

THE  Sioux  sat  around  their  wigwam  fires 
in  winter  with  some  papooses  hung  up 
and  some  laid  down. 

And  the  Sioux  had  a  saying,  "  Love  grows 
like  hair  on  a  black  bear's  skin." 

The  Arabians  spill  this:  The  first  gray 
hair  is  a  challenge  of  death. 
A  Polish  blacksmith:  A  good  black 
smith  is  not  afraid  of  smoke. 
And  a  Scandinavian  warns:  The  world  was  born 
in  fire  and  he  who  is  fire  himself  will  be 
at  home  anywhere  on  earth. 
So  a  stranger  told  his  children:  You  are 
strangers — and  warned  them: 

Bob  your  hair;  or  let  it  grow  long; 

Be  a  company,  a  party,  a  picnic; 

Be  alone,  a  nut,  a  potato,  an  orange  blossom, 
a  keg  of  nails ;  if  you  get  lost  try  a 
want  ad;  if  night  comes  try  a  long  sleep. 


46  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


COUPLES 

Six  miasmic  women  in  green 
danced  an  absinthe  dance 
hissing  oaths  of  laughter 
at  six  men  they  cheated. 

Six  miasmic  men  did  the  same 
for  six  women  they  cheated. 

It  was  a  stand-off 

in  oaths  of  laughter  hissed; 

The  dirt  is  hard  where  they  danced. 
The  pads  of  their  feet  made  a  floor. 

The  weeds  wear  moon  mist  mourning  veils. 
The  weeds  come  high  as  six  little  crosses, 
One  little  cross  for  each  couple. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West         47 


CALIGARI 

MANNIKINS,  we  command  you. 

Stand  up  with  your  white  beautiful  skulls. 

Stand  up  with  your  moaning  sockets. 

Dance  your  stiff  limping  dances. 

We  handle  you  with  spic  and  span  gloves. 

We  tell  you  when  and  how 

And  how  much. 


48  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 

FEATHER  LIGHTS 
MACABRE  and  golden  the  moon  opened  a  slant  of  light. 

A  triangle  for  an  oriole  to  stand  and  sing,  "  Take  me 
home." 

A  layer  of  thin  white  gold  feathers  for  a  child  queen  of 
gypsies. 

So  the  moon  opened  a  slant  of  light  and  let  it  go. 

So  the  lonesome  dogs,  the  fog  moon,  the  pearl  mist, 
came  back. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  49 

\ 


PEARL  HORIZONS 

UNDER  a  prairie  fog  moon 

in  a  circle  of  pearl  mist  horizons, 

a  few  lonesome  dogs  scraping  thongs, 

midnight  is  lonely;  the  fog  moon  midnight 

takes  up  again  its  even  smooth  November. 

Memories:  you  can  flick  me  and  sting  me. 
Memories,  you  can  hold  me  even  and  smooth. 

A  circle  of  pearl  mist  horizons 
is  not  a  woman  to  be  walked  up  to  and  kissed, 
nor  a  child  to  be  taken  and  held  for  a  good-night, 
nor  any  old  coffee-drinking  pal  to  be  smiled  at  in 
the  eyes  and  left  with  a  grip  and  a  handshake. 

Pearl  memories  in  the  mist  circling  the  horizon, 
flick  me,  sting  me,  hold  me  even  and  smooth. 


50  Slabs  r  j    the  Sunburnt  West 


HOOF  DUSK 

THE  dusk  of  this  box  wood 
is  leather  gold,  buckskin  gold, 
and  the  hoofs  of  a  dusk  goat 
leave  their  heel  marks  on  it. 

The  cover  of  this  wooden  box 
is  a  last-of-the-sunset  red, 
a  red  with  a  sandman  sand 
fixed  in  evening  siftings — 
late  evening  sands  are  here. 

The  gold  of  old  clocks, 
forgotten  in  garrets, 
hidden  out  between  battles 
of  long  wars  and  short  wars, 
the  smoldering  ember  gold 
of  old  clocks  found  again — 
here  is  the  small  smoke  fadeout 
of  their  slow  loitering. 

Feel  me  with  your  fingers, 

measure  me  in  fire  and  wind: 

maybe  I  am  buckskin  gold,  old  clock  gold, 

late  evening  sunset  sand — 

Let  go 

and  loiter 

in  the  smoke  fadeout. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  51 


HARSK,   HARSK 


HARSK,  harsk,  the  wind  blows  to-night. 
What  a  night  for  a  baby  to  come  into  the  world! 
What  a  night  for  a  melodrama  baby  to  come 
And  the  father  pondering 
And  the  mother  wondering 
What  the  years  will  bring  on  their  stork  feet 
Till  a  year  when  this  very  baby  might  be  saying 
On  some  storm  night  when  a  melodrama  baby  is  born 
"  What  a  night 
for  a  baby 

to  come  into  the  world ! !  " 
Harsk,  harsk,  the  wind  blows  to-night. 


It  is  five  months  off. 
Knit,  stitch,  and  hemstitch. 
Sheets,  bags,  towels,  these  are  the  offerings. 
When  he  is  older— or  she  is  a  big  girl- 
There  may  be  flowers  or  ribbons  or  money 
For  birthday  offerings.    Now,  however, 
We  must  remember  it  is  a  naked  stranger 
Coming  to  us,  and  the  sheath  of  the  arrival 


52  Harsk,  Harsk 

Is  so  soft  we  must  be  ready,  and  soft  too. 
Knit,  stitch,  hemstitch,  it  is  only  five  months. 


It  would  be  easy  to  pick  a  lucky  star  for  this  baby 
If  a  choice  of  two  stars  lay  before  our  eyes, 
One  a  pearl  gold  star  and  one  pearl  silver, 
And  the  offer  of  a  chance  to  pick  a  lucky  star. 


When  the  high  hour  comes 

Let  there  be  a  light  flurry  of  snow, 

A  little  zigzag  of  white  spots 

Against  the  gray  roofs. 
The  snow-born  all  understand  this  as  a  luck-wish. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West          53 


BRANCUSI 

BRANCUSI  is  a  galoot;  he  saves  tickets  to  take  him  no 
where;  a  galoot  with  his  baggage  ready  and  no  time  table; 
ah  yes,  Brancusi  is  a  galoot;  he  understands  birds  and 
skulls  so  well,  he  knows  the  hang  of  the  hair  of  the  coils 
and  plaits  on  a  woman's  head,  he  knows  them  so  far  back 
he  knows  where  they  came  from  and  where  they  are 
going;  he  is  fathoming  down  for  the  secrets  of  the  first 
and  the  oldest  makers  of  shapes. 

Let  us  speak  with  loose  mouths  to-day  not  at  all  about 
Brancusi  because  he  has  hardly  started  nor  is  hardly  able 
to  say  the  name  of  the  place  he  wants  to  go  when  he  has 
time  and  is  ready  to  start;  O  Brancusi,  keeping  hardwood 
planks  around  your  doorsteps  in  the  sun  waiting  for  the 
hardwood  to  be  harder  for  your  hard  hands  to  handle, 
you  Brancusi  with  your  chisels  and  hammers,  birds  going 
to  cones,  skulls  going  to  eggs — how  the  hope  hugs  your 
heart  you  will  find  one  cone,  one  egg,  so  hard  when  the 
earth  turns  mist  there  among  the  last  to  go  will  be  a 
cone,  an  egg. 

Brancusi,  you  will  not  put  a  want  ad  in  the  papers  telling 
God  it  will  be  to  his  advantage  to  come  around  and  see 
you;  you  will  not  grow  gabby  and  spill  God  earfuls  of 
prayers;  you  will  not  get  fresh  and  familiar  as  if  God 
is  a  next-door  neighbor  and  you  have  counted  His  shirts 


54  Brancusi 

on  a  clothes  line;  you  will  go  stammering,  stuttering  and 
mumbling  or  you  will  be  silent  as  a  mouse  in  a  church 
garret  when  the  pipe  organ  is  pouring  ocean  waves  on 
the  sunlit  rocks  of  ocean  shores ;  if  God  is  saving  a  corner 
for  any  battling  bag  of  bones,  there  will  be  one  for  you, 
there  will  be  one  for  you,  Brancusi. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


, 


AMBASSADORS   OF   GRIEF 

THERE  was  a  little  fliv  of  a  woman  loved  one  man  and 
lost  out.  And  she  took  up  with  another  and  it  was  a 
blank  again.  And  she  cried  to  God  the  whole  layout 
was  a  fake  and  a  frame-up.  And  when  she  took  up  with 
Number  Three  she  found  the  fires  burnt  out,  the  love 
power,  gone.  And  she  wrote  a  letter  to  God  and  dropped 
it  in  a  mail-box.  The  letter  said: 

0  God,  ain't  there  some  way  you  can  fix  it  up  so  the 
little  flivs  of  women,  ready  to  throw  themselves  in  front 
of  railroad  trains  for  men  they  love,  can  have  a  chance? 

1  guessed  the  wrong  keys,  I  battered  on  the  wrong  panels, 
I  picked  the  wrong  roads.    O  God,  ain't  there  no  way  to 
guess  again  and  start  all  over-back  where  I  had  the  keys 
in  my  hands,  back  where  the  roads  all  came  together  and 
I  had  my  pick? 

And  the  letter  went  to  Washington,  D.  C.,  dumped  into  a 
dump  where  all  letters  go  addressed  to  God  —  and  no 
house  number. 


54          Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 

WITHOUT  THE  CANE  AND  THE  DERBY 
(For  C.  C.) 

THE  woman  had  done  him  wrong. 

Either  that  ...  or  the  woman  was  clean  as  a  white  rose 
in  the  morning  gauze  of  dew. 

It  was  either  one  or  the  other  or  it  was  the  two  things, 
right  and  wrong,  woven  together  like  two  braids  of 
a  woman's  head  of  hair  hanging  down  woven  together. 

The  room  is  dark.  The  door  opens.  It  is  Charlie-playing 
for  his  friends  after  dinner,  "  the  marvelous  urchin, 
the  little  genius  of  the  screen,"  (chatter  it  like  a 
monkey's  running  laughter  cry.) 

No  ...  it  is  not  Charlie  ...  it  is  somebody  else.  It 
is  a  man,  gray  shirt,  bandana,  dark  face.  A  candle 
in  his  left  hand  throws  a  slant  of  light  on  the  dark 
face.  The  door  closes  slow.  The  right  hand  leaves 
the  door  knob  slow. 

He  looks  at  something.  What  is  it?  A  white  sheet  on  a 
table.  He  takes  two  long  soft  steps.  He  runs  the 
candle  light  around  a  hump  in  the  sheet.  He  lifts  the 
sheet  slow,  sad  like. 

A  woman's  head  of  ha;r  shows,  a  woman's  white  face.  He 
takes  the  head  between  his  hands  and  looks  long  at 


Without  the  Cane  and  the  Derby       57 

it.  His  fingers  trickle  under  the  sheet,  snap  loose 
something,  bring  out  fingers  full  of  a  pearl  necklace. 
He  covers  the  face  and  the  head  of  hair  with  the  white 
sheet.  He  takes  a  step  toward  the  door.  The  necklace 
slips  into  his  pocket  off  the  fingers  of  his  right  hand. 
His  left  hand  lifts  the  candle  for  a  good-by  look. 

Knock,  knock,  knock.  A  knocking  the  same  as  the  time 

of  the  human  heartbeat. 
Knock,  knock,  knock,  first  louder,  then  lower.     Knock, 

knock,  knock,  the  same  as  the  time  of  the  human 

heartbeat. 
He  sets  the  candle  on  the  floor  .  .  .  leaps  to  the  white 

sheet  .  .  .  rips  it  back  ...  has  his  fingers  at  the 

neck,  his  thumbs  at  the  throat,  and  does  three  slow 

fierce  motions  of  strangling. 
The  knocking  stops.  All  is  quiet.  He  covers  the  face  and 

the  head  of  hair  with  the  white  sheet,  steps  back, 

picks  up  the  candle  and  listens. 
Knock,  knock,  knock,  a  knocking  the  same  as  the  time 

of  the  human  heartbeat. 
Knock,  knock,  knock,  first  louder,  then  lower.     Knock, 

knock,  knock,  the  same  as  the  time  of  the  human 

heartbeat. 
Again  the  candle  to  the  floor,  the  leap,  the  slow  fierce 

motions  of  strangling,  the  cover-up  of  the  face  and 

the  head  of  hair,  the  step  back,  the  listening. 
And  again  the  knock,  knock,   knock  .  .  .  louder  .  .  . 

lower  ...  to  the  time  of  the  human  heartbeat. 
Once    more    the    motions    of    strangling  .  .  .then  .  .  . 

nothing   at   all  ...  nothing   at   all  ...  no   more 


58  Without  the  Cane  and  the  Derby 

knocking  ...  no  knocking  at  all  ...  no  knocking 
at  all  .      .  in  the  time  of  the  human  heartbeat. 


He  stands  at  the  door  .  .  .  peace,  peace,  peace  every 
where  only  in  the  man's  face  so  dark  and  his  eyes 
so  lighted  up  with  many  lights,  no  peace  at  all,  no 
peace  at  all. 

So  he  stands  at  the  door,  his  right  hand  on  the  door  knob, 
the  candle  slants  of  light  fall  and  flicker  from  his 
face  to  the  straight  white  sheet  changing  gray  against 
shadows. 

So  there  is  peace  everywhere  ...  no  more  knocking  .  .  . 
no  knocking  at  all  to  the  time  of  the  human  heart 
beat  ...  so  he  stands  at  the  door  and  his  right  hand 
on  the  door  knob. 

And  there  is  peace  everywhere  .  .  .  only  the  man's  face 
is  a  red  gray  plaster  of  storm  in  the  center  of  peace 
...  so  he  stands  with  a  candle  at  the  door  ...  so 
he  stands  with  a  red  gray  face. 

After  he  steps  out  the  door  closes;  the  door,  the  door 
knob,  the  table,  the  white  sheet,  there  is  nothing  at 
all;  the  owners  are  shadows;  the  owners  are  gone; 
not  even  a  knocking;  not  even  a  knock,  knock, 
knock  .  .  .  louder,  lower,  in  the  time  of  the  human 
heartbeat. 

The  lights  are  snapped  on.  Charlie,  "  the  marvelous 
urchin,  the  little  genius  of  the  screen"  (chatter  it 
with  a  running  monkey's  laughter  cry)  Charlie  is 
laughing  a  laugh  the  whole  world  knows. 


Without  the  Cane  and  the  Derby       59 

The  room  is  full  of  cream  yellow  lights.  Charlie  is 
laughing  .  .  .  louder  .  .  .  lower  .  .  . 

And  again  the  heartbeats  laugh  ...  the  human  heart 
beats  laugh.  .  .  . 


60  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


THE  RAKEOFF  AND   THE   GETAWAY 

"  SHALL  we  come  back?  "  the  gamblers  asked. 
"  If  you  want  to,  if  you  feel  that  way,"  the  answer. 

And  they  must  have  wanted  to, 

they  must  have  felt  that  way; 

for  they  came  back, 

hats  pulled  down  over  their  eyes 

as  though  the  rain  or  the  policemen 

or  the  shadows  of  a  sneaking  scar-face  Nemesis 

followed  their  tracks  and  hunted  them  down. 

"What  was  the  clean-up?     Let's  see  the  Takeoff," 

somebody  asked  them,  looking  into  their  eyes 

far  under  the  pulled-down  hat  rims; 

and  their  eyes  had  only  the  laugh  of  the  rain  in  them, 

lights  of  escape  from  a  sneaking  scar- face  Nemesis 

hunting  their  tracks,  hunting  them  down. 

Anvils,  pincers,  mosquitoes,  anguish,  raspberries, 

steaks  and  gravy,  remorse,  ragtime,  slang, 

a  woman's  looking  glass  to  be  held  in  the  hand 

for  looking  at  the  face  and  the  face  make-up, 

blackwing  birds  fitted  onto  slits 

of  the  sunsets  they  were  flying  into, 

bitter  green  waters,  clear  running  waters, 


The  Rakeoff  and  the  Getaway          61 

standing  pools  ringing  the  changes 

of  all  the  triangles  of  the  equinoxes  of  the  sky, 

and  a  woman's  slipper 

with  a  tarnished  buckle, 

a  tarnished  Chinese  silver  buckle. 

The  gamblers  snatched  their  hats  off  babbling, 
"  Some  layout — take  your  pick,  kid." 

And  their  eyes  had  yet  in  them 
the  laugh  of  the  rain 
and  the  lights  of  their  getaway 
from  a  sneaking  scar-face  Nemesis. 


62  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


TWO  HUMPTIES 

THEY  tried  to  hand  it  to  us  on  a  platter, 

Us    hit    in    the    eyes    with    marconigrams    from    moon 

dancers  — 
And  the  bubble  busted,  went  flooey,  on  a  thumb  touch. 


So  this  time  again, 
We  cork  our  laughs  behind  solemn  phizzogs, 
Sweep  the  floor  with  the  rim  of  our  hats 
And  say  good-a-by  and  good-a-by,  just  like  that. 

To-morrow  maybe  they  will  be  hit 
In  the  eyes  with  marconigrams 
From  moon  dancers. 
Good-a-by,  our  hats  and  all  of  us  say  good-a-by. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  63 


IMPROVED    FARM    LAND 

TALL  timber  stood  here  once,  here  on  a  corn  belt  farm 

along  the  Monon. 
Here  the  roots  of  a  half  mile  of  trees  dug  their  runners 

deep  in  the  loam  for  a  grip  and  a  hold  against  wind 

storms. 
Then  the  axmen  came  and  the  chips  flew  to  the  zing  of 

steel  and  handle — the  lank  railsplitters  cut  the  big 

ones  first,  the  beeches  and  the  oaks,  then  the  brush. 
Dynamite,   wagons   and   horses   took   the   stumps— the 

plows  sunk  their  teeth  in — now  it  is  first  class  corn 

land — improved  property — and  the  hogs  grunt  over 

the  fodder  crops. 
It  would  come  hard  now  for  this  half  mile  of  improved 

farm  land  along  the  Monon  corn  belt,  on  a  piece  of 

Grand  Prairie,  to  remember  once  it  had  a  great 

singing  family  of  trees. 


64  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


HELL   ON  THE  WABASH 

WHEN  country  fiddlers  held  a  convention  in 

Danville,  the  big  money  went  to  a  barn  dance 

artist  who  played  Turkey  in  the  Straw,  with 

variations. 

They  asked  him  the  name  of  the  piece  calling 

it  a  humdinger  and  he  answered,  "  I  call  it 

'  Hell  On  The  Wabash.'  " 

The  two  next  best  were  The  Speckled  Hen,  and 

Sweet   Potatoes   Grow   in   Sandy   Land,   with 

variations. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  65 


THIS— FOR  THE  MOON— YES? 

THIS  is  a  good  book?    Yes? 

Throw  it  at  the  moon. 

Stand  on  the  ball  of  your  right  foot 

And  come  to  the  lunge  of  a  center  fielder 

Straddling  in  a  throw  for  the  home  plate, 

Let  her  go— spang— this  book  for  the  moon 

— yes? 
And  then— other  books,  good  books,  even  the 

best  books— shoot  'em  with  a  long  twist 

at  the  moon — yes? 


66  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 


PRIMER  LESSON 


LOOK  out  how  you  use  proud  words. 
When  you  let  proud  words  go,  it  is 

not  easy  to  call  them  back. 
They  wear  long  boots,  hard  boots;  they 

walk  off  proud;  they  can't  hear  you 

calling — 
Look  out  how  you  use  proud  words. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  67 


SLABS  OF  THE  SUNBURNT  WEST 


INTO  the  night,  into  the  blanket  of  night, 
Into  the  night  rain  gods,  the  night  luck  gods, 
Overland  goes  the  overland  passenger  train. 

Stand  up,  sandstone  slabs  of  red, 
Tell  the  overland  passengers  who  burnt  you. 

Tell  'em  how  the  jacks  and  screws  loosened  you. 

Tell  'em  who  shook  you  by  the  heels  and  stood  you  on 

your  heads, 
Who  put  the  slow  pink  of  sunset  mist  on  your  faces. 

Panels  of  the  cold  gray  open  night, 

Gates  of  the  Great  American  Desert, 

Skies  keeping  the  prayers  of  the  wagon  men, 
The  riders  with  picks,  shovels  and  guns, 

On  the  old  trail,  the  Santa  Fe  trail,  the  Raton  pass 

Panels,  skies,  gates,  listen  to-night  while  we  send  up  our 
prayers  on  the  Santa  Fe  trail. 

(A  colossal  bastard  frog 
squats  in  stone. 
Once  he  squawked. 
Then  he  was  frozen  and 
shut  up  forever.) 


68  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 

Into  the  night  the  overland  passenger  train, 
Slabs  of  sandstone  red  sink  to  the  sunset  red, 
Blankets  of  night  cover  'em  up. 
Night  rain  gods,  night  luck  gods,  are  looking  on. 

March  on,  processions. 
Tie  your  hat  to  the  saddle  and  ride,  O  Rider. 
Let  your  ponies  drag  their  navels  in  the  sand. 
Go  hungry;  leave  your  bones  in  the  desert  sand. 
When  the  desert  takes  you  the  wind  is  clean. 
The  winds  say  so  on  a  noisy  night. 

The  fingerbone  of  a  man 
lay  next  to  the  handle  of  a  frying  pan 
and  the  footbone  of  a  horse. 

"  Clean,  we  are  clean,"  the  winds  whimper  on  a  noisy 

night. 

Into  the  night  the  overland  passenger  train, 
And  the  engineer  with  an  eye  for  signal  lights, 
And  the  porters  making  up  berths  for  passengers, 
And  the  boys  in  the  diner  locking  the  ice-box — 
And   six  men  with   cigars   in   the  buffet   car   mention 
"civilization,"   "history,"  "God." 

Into  the  blanket  of  night  goes  the  overland  train, 
Into  the  black  of  the  night  the  processions  march, 

The  ghost  of  a  pony  goes  by, 

A  hat  tied  to  the  saddle, 

The  wagon  tongue  of  a  prairie  schooner 

And  the  handle  of  a  Forty-niner's  pickax 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  69 

Do  a  shiver  dance  in  the  desert  dust, 
In  the  coyote  gray  of  the  alkali  dust. 
And — six  men  with   cigars  in   the  buffet  car  mention 
"civilization,"   "history,"   "God." 

Sleep,  0  wonderful  hungry  people. 
Take  a  shut-eye,  take  a  long  old  snooze, 

and  be  good  to  yourselves ; 
Into  the  night  the  overland  passenger  train 
And  the  sleepers  cleared  for  a  morning  sun 

and  the  Grand  Canyon  of  Arizona. 


2 

A  bluejay  blue 

and  a  gray  mouse  gray 

ran  up  the  canyon  walls. 

A  rider  came  to  the  rim 

Of  a  slash  and  a  gap  of  desert  dirt — 

A  long-legged  long-headed  rider 

On  a  blunt  and  a  blurry  jackass — 

Riding  and  asking,  "  How  come?   How  come?  " 

And  the  long-legged  long-headed  rider  said: 

"  Between  two  ears  of  a  blurry  jackass 

I  see  ten  miles  of  auburn,  gold  and  purple — 

I  see  doors  open  over  doorsills 

And  always  another  door  and  a  doorsill. 

Cheat  my  eyes,  fill  me  with  the  float 

Of  your  dream,  you  auburn,  gold,  and  purple. 


70  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 

Cheat  me,  blow  me  off  my  pins  onto  footless  floors. 

Let  me  put  footsteps  in  an  airpath. 

Cheat  me  with  footprints  on  auburn,  gold,  purple 

Out  to  the  last  violet  shimmer  of  the  float 

Of  the  dream — and  I  will  come  straddling  a  jackass, 

Singing  a  song  and  letting  out  hallelujahs 

To  the  door  sill  of  the  last  footprint." 

And  the  man  took  a  stub  lead  pencil 
And  made  a  long  memo  in  shorthand 
On  the  two  blurry  jackass  ears: — 

"  God  sits  with  long  whiskers  in  the  sky." 
I  said  it  when  I  was  a  boy. 
I  said  it  because  long-whiskered  men 
Put  it  in  my  head  to  say  it. 

They  lied  .  .  .  about  you  .  .  .  God  .  .  . 

They  lied.  .  .  . 

The  other  side  of  the  five  doors 

and  doorsills  put  in  my  house — 

how  many  hinges,  panels,  doorknobs, 

how  many  locks  and  lintels, 

put  on  the  doors  and  doorsills 

winding  and  wild  between 

the  first  and  the  last  doorsill  of  all? 

"  Out  of  the  footprints  on  ten  miles 

of  auburn,  gold  and  purple — an  old  song  comes: 

These  bones  shall  rise  again, 

Yes,  children,  these  bones  shall  rise. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  71 

"  Yonder  past  my  five  doors 

are  fifty  million  doors,  maybe, 

stars  with  knobs  and  locks  and  lintels, 

stars  with  riders  of  rockets, 

stars  with  swimmers  of  fire. 

"  Cheat  my  eyes — and  I  come  again — 
straddling  a  jackass — singing  a  song — 
letting  out  hallelujahs. 

"  If  God  is  a  proud  and  a  cunning  Bricklayer, 

Or  if  God  is  a  King  in  a  white  gold  Heaven, 

Or  if  God  is  a  Boss  and  a  Watchman  always  watching, 

I  come  riding  the  old  ride  of  the  humiliation, 

Straddling  a  Jackass,  singing  a  song, 

Letting  out  hallelujahs. 

"  Before  a  ten  mile  float 
of  auburn,  gold,  and  purple, 
footprints  on  a  sunset  airpath  haze, 

I  ask: 

How  can  I  taste  with  my  tongue  a  tongueless  God? 
How  can  I  touch  with  my  fingers  a  fingerless  God? 
How  can  I  hear  with  my  ears  an  earless  God? 
Or  smell  of  a  God  gone  noseless  long  ago? 
Or  look  on  a  God  who  never  needs  eyes  for  looking? 

"  My  head  is  under  your  foot,  God. 
My  head  is  a  pan  of  alkali  dust 
your  foot  kicked  loose — your  foot  of  air 
with  its  steps  on  the  sunset  airpath  haze. 


72  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 

(A  bluejay  blue 

and  a  gray  mouse  gray 

ran  up  the  canyon  walls.) 

"  Sitting  at  the  rim  of  the  big  gap 

at  the  high  lash  of  the  frozen  storm  line, 

I  ask  why  I  go  on  five  crutches, 

tongues,  ears,  nostrils — all  cripples — 

eyes  and  nose — both  cripples — 

I  ask  why  these  five  cripples 

limp  and  squint  and  gag  with  me, 

why  they  say  with  the  oldest  frozen  faces: 

Man  is  a  poor  stick  and  a  sad  squirt; 

if  he  is  poor  he  can't  dress  up; 

if  he  dresses  up  he  don't  know  any  place  to  go. 

"  Away  and  away  on  some  green  moon 

a  blind  blue  horse  eats  white  grass 

And  the  blind  blue  horse  knows  more  than  I  do 
because  he  saw  more  than  I  have  seen 
and  remembered  it  after  he  went  blind. 

"  And  away  and  away  on  some  other  green  moon 

is  a  sea-kept  child  who  lacks  a  nose  I  got 

and  fingers  like  mine  and  all  I  have. 

And  yet  the  sea-kept  child  knows  more  than 

I  do  and  sings  secrets  alien  to  me  as  light 

to  a  nosing  mole  underground. 

I  understand  this  child  as  a  yellow-belly 

catfish  in  China  understands  peach  pickers 

at  sunrise  in  September  in  a  Michigan  orchard. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West  73 

"  The  power  and  lift  of  the  sea 

and  the  flame  of  the  old  earth  fires  under, 

I  sift  their  meanings  of  sand  in  my  fingers. 

I  send  out  five  sleepwalkers  to  find  out  who  I  am, 
my  name  and  number,  where  I  came  from, 
and  where  I  am  going. 

They  go  out,  look,  listen,  wonder,  and  shoot  a  fire-white 
rocket  across  the  night  sky;  the  shot  and  the  flare 
of  the  rocket  dies  to  a  whisper;  and  the  night  is  the 
same  as  it  always  was. 

They  come  back,  my  five  sleepwalkers ;  they  have  an 
answer  for  me,  they  say;  they  tell  me:  Wait — the 
password  all  of  them  heard  when  the  fire-white  rocket 
shot  across  the  sky  and  died  to  a  whisper,  the  pass 
word  is:  Wait. 

"  I  sit  with  five  binoculars,  amplifiers,  spectroscopes 
I  sit  looking  through  five  windows,  listening,   tasting, 

smelling,  touching. 

I  sit  counting  five  million  smoke  fogs. 
Repeaters,  repeaters,  come  back  to  my  window  sills. 
Some  are  pigeons  coming  to  coo  and  coo  and  clean  their 

tail  feathers  and  look  wise  at  me. 
Some  are  pigeons  coming  with  broken  wings  to  die  with 

pain  in  their  eyes  on  my  window  sills. 

"  I  walk  the  high  lash  of  the  frozen  storm  line; 
I  sit  down  with  my  feet  in  a  ten-mile  gravel  pit. 
Here  I  ask  why  I  am  a  bag  of  sea-water  fastened 
to  a  frame  of  bones  put  walking  on  land — here  I 
look  at  crawlers,  crimson,  spiders  spotted  with 


74  Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 

purple  spots  on  their  heads,  flinging  silver  nets, 
two,  four,  six,  against  the  sun. 
Here  I  look  two  miles  down  to  the  ditch  of  the  sea 
and  pick  a  winding  ribbon,  a  river  eater,  a  water 
grinder;  it  is  a  runner  sent  to  run  by  a  stop-watch, 
it  is  a  wrecker  on  a  rush  job." 


(A  bluejay  blue 

and  a  gray  mouse  gray 

ran  up  the  canyon  walls.) 


Battering  rams,  blind  mules,  mounted  policemen, 
trucks  hauling  caverns  of  granite,  elephants 
grappling  gorillas  in  a  death  strangle,  cathedrals, 
arenas,  platforms,  somersaults  of  telescoped  rail 
road  train  wrecks,  exhausted  egg  heads,  piles  of 
skulls,  mountains  of  empty  sockets,  mummies  of  kings 
and  mobs,  memories  of  work  gangs  and  wrecking  crews, 
sobs  of  wind  and  water  storms,  all  frozen  and  held 
on  paths  leading  on  to  spirals  of  new  zigzags — 


An  arm-chair  for  a  one-eyed  giant; 

two  pine  trees  grow  in  the  left  arm  of  the  chair; 

a  bluejay  comes,  sits,  goes,  comes  again; 

a  bluejay  shoots  and  twitters  .  .  out  and  across 

tumbled  skyscrapers  and  wrecked  battleships, 

walls  of  crucifixions  and  wedding  breakfasts; 

ruin,  ruin — a  brute  gnashed,  dug,  kept  on — 

kept  on  and  quit:  and  this  is  It. 


Slabs  of  the  Sunburnt  West 

Falling  away,  the  brute  is  working. 

Sheets  of  white  veils  cross  a  woman's  face. 

An  eye  socket  glooms  and  wonders. 

The  brute  hangs  his  head  and  drags  on  to  the  job. 

The  mother  of  mist  and  light  and  air  murmurs:  Wait. 

The  weavers  of  light  weave  best  in  red, 

better  in  blue. 
The  weavers  of  shadows  weave  at  sunset; 

the  young  black-eyed  women  run,  run,  run 

to  the  night  star  homes;  the  old  women 

sit  weaving  for  the  night  rain  gods, 

the  night  luck  gods. 

Eighteen  old  giants  throw  a  red  gold  shadow  ball; 
they  pass  it  along;  hands  go  up  and  stop  it;  they 
bat  up  flies  and  practice ;  they  begin  the  game,  they 
knock  it  for  home  runs  and  two-baggers ;  the  pitcher 
put  it  across  in  an  out-  and  an  in-shoot  drop;  the 
Devil  is  the  Umpire;  God  is  the  Umpire;  the  game 
is  called  on  account  of  darkness. 


A  bluejay  blue 

and  a  gray  mouse  gray 

ran  up  the  canyon  walls. 


Good  night ;  it  is  scribbled  on  the  panels 
of  the  cold  grey  open  desert. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


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General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


